Even as highly professional people, there can be roadblocks to financial advisors’ visibility among networks and their ability to quickly gain trust with new contacts – particularly at a time when we are almost always online! Yet visibility and trust are essential to achieving your business development goals.
After presenting alongside Rocky Scopelliti in 2021 on ‘Redesigning Trust in the Digital Age’, personal branding for professional services expert Julissa Shrewsbury returns to FINSIA this month to discuss some key challenges and opportunities for the finance professional to consider in 2022, from her experience working with clients in banking, financial services, accounting, audit and law. Here, she discusses one of her key tools for developing visibility and trust, strategic positioning.
Strategic Positioning of your Personal Brand
If you know you are good at what you do, but aren’t sure how to communicate that with impact… or if you’ve asked yourself how you can be seen more clearly as the go-to in a particular space… strategic positioning of your personal brand is an important next step for you.
In my work with finance teams and professional advisors, I regularly see examples of people failing to clearly introduce their work in a way that is differentiated and impactful. In networking, they make general statements such as, ‘I’m a client relationship manager for …’, failing to place themselves in a particular context or to highlight a focus area. In formal introductions and on LinkedIn, they rarely create a sense of authority in their space, listing values and attributes in general, overused language that means nothing!
To position yourself with impact, you need to be clear and specific about:
- What you do,
- for whom, and
- why that matters.
In other words, what is the focus of your work and its value to your target audience?
These are the basics; then it’s important to differentiate yourself in the way you describe your work. If you are a business leader or senior manager – how would you describe your leadership focus and style? If you are highly knowledgeable in a particular niche – who seeks you out and why?
Getting clear on the language to use in your positioning is the thing that most people find challenging, no matter their level of confidence in what they do. Most people fall back on sales speak or industry lingo, which fail to connect people to your message. To build trust, you need to deliver the communication of what you do confidently, simply, and in a human way.
Getting this right is a process! It can take a few attempts workshopping through the best language and trying it out on others before you settle on a statement that invites people to see you through a particular lens – one which highlights value, cuts through the noise and builds trust.
About the author
Julissa Shrewsbury is Director of New Work Consulting, a specialist advisory working with organisations around Australia, on how their people represent themselves and the company brand, both online and in-person. NWC’s focus is building internal professional confidence and external brand trust.
Hear more from Julissa at the upcoming webinar, Challenges & Opportunities for the Finance Professional’s Personal Brand in 2022
